Tedious/Productive Weekend

tyunglebower ♦ March 4, 2013 ♦ Leave a comment

They say the days of blog posts being of a personal nature are over. That there is no longer any reason to post on a blog about our daily lives, because nobody cares.

In that case, feel free to stop here, because I’m going to that very thing. That’s because I spent a good portion of the weekend both rearranging furniture, and building more of it from one of those ghastly kits you buy at a department store. This when I wasn’t cleaning up the back and front yards.

No doubt, you’ve heard about 14 million people lament as to the atrocities of DIY furniture kits, so I’m not going to elaborate on that. Everything I could say about such a frustrating, time consuming, energy draining enterprise has been said in far more clever ways than I feel like exploring.

Suffice to say that the instructions had no words, and I had no patience by the end of the procedure. But I made a promise out loud that I would neither yell nor throw anything during the operation, and that promise was kept, my friends. That the new storage shelf in my bathroom is not put together 100% correctly. But it’s solid now, and secured to the wall. I have a place to put my aftershave and cold medicine without showing it to the world now. I’m satisfied.

Taking apart an old piece of furniture and tossing the pieces onto the wood pile in the backyard was much more fun.

Then there was the home computer I had to move from one place to another. This is the computer that everyone in the house, as well as visitors use. For various reasons over the years, I’ve had to move it several dozen times. No matter how hard I try, this operation must always begin with 20 minutes of untangling wires that end up in knots that would be the envy of the Royal Navy.

Oh I know, I could bundle them. But I have no idea which wires to bundle in what fashion to make them more easily accessed in the future. Furthermore, with as often as they all need to be moved, and the inhuman contortionist angles at which they end up each time, bundling would make the next move even more difficult. So I don’t. I just spend an hour or so moving everything, and hope it can stay there for at least a year, before limbering up one morning to start the process over again. Spatial relations just are not my thing.

Not to mention the spotty internet all weekend, a cause of which I’ve been unable to deduce. I don’t know as much about computers as I probably should, and mine is years past its prime. But something tells me that the problem isn’t mine, but the provider’s. The provider says it’s mine. So there you go. The connection has deigned to function all day today so far, knock on cyber-wood.

Yet through all of the annoyances and contortions and slow, steady marches towards exhaustion, I had a good feeling last night. I got a lot done that I can see in a tangible way. It was a weekend filled with tedium, but a tedium that by Sunday evening had brought several changes to the house. I’m not handy man, but once in a while I can get things done. Probably in a less efficient and more tiring way than most, but done is done. Dinners taste better at the end of such days. Drinks are more refreshing.

I think we all need a weekend like the one I had sometimes. Where you struggle to get done less then pleasant jobs for which you know in the end you were not built. And your end product may not be as high quality as some others. And you may be more tired than most would be after the same weekend. But you look back on Monday morning, as I have today, and see that much got done. I feel a greater sense of accomplishment sometimes at finishing the dozen tedious tasks than I do accomplishing one important one. And feeling accomplished is feeling accomplished.

Though I still have one more piece of furniture to put together this week. Ask if I feel that upbeat about things once that’s over.

Ever have one of those tedious weekends of errands? How did you feel afterward?